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Making Miracles Happen                        Matthew 14: 13-21                   August 3, 2008

I've never been a fan of "Christian Fiction." I love to read, as I've mentioned here many times, but I've always had trouble getting into books that have angels and other humanized manifestations of God intervening in people's lives. I love stories about the struggle between good and evil and I love stories about the triumph of love, but authors that personify God and have God moving around in the present world just aren't normally my cup of tea.

So it was with skepticism that I picked up a copy of William P. Young's The Shack, a work of Christian Fiction that has been on the New York Times Trade Fiction Bestseller List for weeks and is currently number one.

I'm glad I did. It is quite a book, after all. In the words of its publisher, it ". . .challenged some of my theological constructs and invited me into a robust discussion, whether I agree with everything in it or not in the end."

Like most good works of fiction, the reader is hooked early on. At the start of the novel we learn that Missy, the young daughter of the central character, Mackenzie Allen Phillips - Mack, for short - was abducted and brutally murdered. Four years later, after receiving a note that invites him to do so, Mack visits the shack where evidence of his daughter's murder was discovered. He spends a weekend there in a kind of spiritual therapy session with God, whom the author pictures as a large, African-American woman who calls herself "Papa"; with Jesus, who, predictably, appears as a Jewish carpenter; and with Sarayu, an Asian woman who turns out to be the incarnation of the Holy Spirit.

The book has a simple plot: Mack, a father who experienced an incredible loss (referred to as "The Great Sadness" in the book), ends up spending a few days with God in the form of this Holy Trinity of sorts, working through his anger, resentment, disbelief, frustration and a whole host of theological issues.

Opinions expressed in reviews of The Shack are all over the map. One reviewer, gushing, starts his comments by explaining that he has been in tears for the previous hour while finishing the book. Another bristles with sarcastic anger and hateful, caustic criticism. Still another is underwhelmed - offering, at the end of the review, to send his copy of the book to anyone who wants to read it and offer a comment.

I'll let you decide, if you choose to read the book, and I won't give away the ending - which, by the way, is a good one. Suffice it to say that Willie Young, in writing this novel, has managed to stir up both a loyal following and a host of critics at the same time.

I mention it today because, at its core,The Shack is a story about a miracle. It is a story about a broken, troubled man and how God heals his brokenness and restores his faith.

And our text for this morning prompts us to think, together, about miracles. It is the familiar story of the "feeding of the five thousand," as recorded by the Gospel writer Matthew.

You know the story. It is among the most familiar miracle stories in the Bible.

Jesus retreats to a boat for a little "R & R" and when he returns to shore he discovers that a great multitude has gathered. He naturally has compassion for the crowd and spends the rest of the day healing the sick among them. When evening comes, Jesus' disciples suggest that he send the crowd away so that each of them can find food for supper. Instead, Jesus says, "no, they need not go away; you give them something to eat."

"But we only have five loaves and a couple of dried fish," the disciples say. "Bring them to me," Jesus responds, and then he blesses the food, invites the crowd to eat, and - miraculously - all have plenty after all, with twelve baskets full of leftovers at the end of the meal.

The feeding of the five thousand is important Scripture. There are lots of reasons why this is true, but consider this one: It's the only miracle story to appear in all four of the Gospels. It is one of those Biblical accounts that simply cannot be ignored.

To appreciate its meaning, we need to look at it in context.

Jesus had been through one of the most trying periods in his life. He had just been rejected by the people in Nazareth, his home town, and he had just heard the news that his cousin, John the Baptist - the man who baptized him and launched his public ministry - had been murdered in a gruesome, obscene fashion - his head having been served up on a platter to King Herod.

So it comes as no surprise that Jesus decides to retreat for a while and quietly turn to God in prayer. His retreat, however, is short-lived. When he sees the gathered crowd his compassion overwhelms his sorrow and he chooses their need over his own, heals their sick and feeds them when they get hungry.

This story is rich with meaning. Fodder for dozens of sermons. As one scholar puts it, the passage resonates with images that remind us of other important Biblical events - God's gift of manna in the wilderness as Moses led the people out of Egypt comes to mind, as does the approaching final meal that Jesus will eat with his disciples.

We could spend the next hour talking about those parallels.

Jesus' choice not to withdraw and retreat in the face of danger is also central to the meaning of the passage, as is his decision to not shrink the story down to personal safety and survival.

All of these meanings are important, but the key to this miracle's message, I believe, rests with the way Jesus chose to feed the crowd of people gathered that day.

When his disciples asked their spent, exhausted leader to do a perfectly reasonable thing - send the crowds away to find food for themselves - Jesus could have nodded and returned to his well-deserved period of rest and mourning.

At the other extreme, he could have grabbed the crowd's attention and enhanced his reputation by astonishing them with a dramatic showing of his power as he fed them by himself.

But Jesus did neither of these things. Instead, he takes the food they have in hand, blesses it, breaks it and gives it to the disciples, who then distribute it to the people. He insists that the disciples give the people food. He insists that those who follow him become agents of God's compassion and power.

The miracle of the feeding of the five thousand - so important that all four of the Gospel writers included it in their accounts - shows us the way miracles happen. They happen when ordinary people stand up act.

Jesus was the one who the crowds gathered to hear. Certainly not the disciples. They were just disciples. Regular people. And in their minds, the crowd would either have to be sent home, or Jesus would have to perform a miracle.

But Jesus had something different in mind. He turned them into miracle-workers. Jesus, with their help, turned a puny little supply of bread and fish into a feast for five thousand people.

"Give them something to eat," he says.

The disciples thought that they had nothing to give the crowd. Jesus showed them that they did have something. And that their something was sufficient to feed everybody.

"The problem with miracles," writes Barbara Brown Taylor, "is that we tend to get mesmerized by them, focusing on God's responsibility and forgetting our own. Miracles let us off the hook. They appeal to the part of us that is all too happy to let God feed the crowd, save the world, do it all. We do not have what it takes, after all, so we hold back and wait for a miracle, looking after our own needs and looking for God to help those who cannot help themselves.

Sitting in the crowd, waiting for God to act, we can hang on to our own little loaves of bread. They are not much; they would not go far. Besides, Jesus is in charge of the bread, doesn't that excuse us from sharing our own? God will provide; let God provide." *

Jesus' message to his disciples is clear. "Stop looking for someone to solve the problem and solve it yourself," he tells them. "Stop waiting for food to fall from the sky and share what you have. Stop waiting for a miracle and participate in one instead. If you want a miracle, make one happen."

My favorite chapter in The Shack is titled "Verbs and Other Freedoms." It's the chapter in which Mack learns that God is not a noun, but a verb.

Sarayu, the character that represents the Holy Spirit, tells him, "Mackenzie, I will take a verb over a noun anytime. . . I am a verb. I am alive, dynamic, ever active and moving. I am a being verb. . . Verbs are what makes the universe alive."

If Sarayu is telling the truth, and I believe she is, her message to Mack is consistent with Jesus' message to his disciples that day when they fed the crowd together. God is about action.

And if we are to be followers of God, we too must be people of action. We must be verb lovers.

We always have a choice. We can do nothing or do something. We can complain that what we have is insufficient, or take what we have and give our Lord the chance to bless it and use it to work miracles.

Miracles still happen. Today, as they did in Jesus' time. But they happen when we make them happen. When we participate, with Jesus in working them. In the end, that is what makes us disciples.

                                                                             AMEN

* Barbara Brown Taylor, The Seeds of Heaven, WJK Press, 2004 p. 52

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